Hololive VTubers Akai Haato and Kiryu Coco have returned to their streaming schedules after a 3-week suspension as a result of sharing data about their Taiwanese audience.
As we reported previously, Akai Haato and Kiryu Coco were suspended after broadcasting viewer data on their stream, including data about their Taiwanese audience. The inclusion of Taiwan as an independent country in Google Analytics caused a backlash in Chinese viewers that adhere to the “One China” Policy which considers Taiwan and Hong Kong as wayward Chinese territories.
Meanwhile Cover, the company behind HoloLive has explained the reason for the suspension as merely sharing sensitive data and have done their best to sidestep any conversation about Taiwan’s sovereignty.
Despite the suspension, Chinese activists wanted harsher penalties for the two streamers with some calling for Coco’s “retirement”. After the incident, Kiyru Coco’s name has allegedly been censored on some Chinese media platforms, including the popular game Genshin Impact.
Cover welcomed back the two VTubers with a thread on the official English HoloLive Twitter page. They explained the reasoning behind the suspension and attributed it to a “miscommunication”. Meanwhile Cover has also rebuked the harassment and threats directed at Akai Haato and Kiryu Coco as a result of this controversy.
You can watch Kiryu Coco’s return stream below.
Kiryu Coco’s return stream has been watched over 600,000 times at the time of publishing. According to chat comments on the stream, Chinese viewers who were still angry attempted to spam and derail her return in the chat but many of these comments have allegedly since been moderated.
